Neurotic Killer Clowns Attack Public Forests |
CounterPunch Exclusives
CounterPunch Exclusives
Neurotic Killer Clowns Attack Public Forests
Clearcut, Gifford Pinchot National Forest, Washington Cascades. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.
Americans who love the great outdoors are witnessing Trump’s “Plunder America First” public forest liquidation program – up close and personal. National forests are on the chopping block to ‘make them healthy.’
Hunters and local rural residents are disgusted with the rapid loss of secure habitat for elk, deer, bears and moose on public land caused by massive clearcuts and too many (‘spaghetti’) logging roads.
When the first shot rings out on opening day, big game herds pack up and leave home territories on U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands and seek refuge on private tracts where guided hunts cost more than local Montanans are able or willing to pay.
Trump’s Executive Orders decreeing environmental deregulation and higher production targets (hyper-logging) represent a throwback to 15th century enclosure laws. Hyper-logging devalues secure habitat and displaces wildlife from public forests, while handing timber companies below-cost logs and windfall benefits. The local peasantry pays in triplicate. They’re forced to subsidize forest destruction, denied the experience of ‘fair chase’ hunting, and robbed of their historic source of wild meat that fed Montana’s........